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Eugene Farrell | 12 May 2025
Mental Health Awareness Week: It’s all about feeling connected to a community!
Mental Health Awareness Week is here, and at The Solicitors’ Charity we’re welcoming and supporting this year’s themes of community and connection. Below, our mental health and wellbeing spokesperson and trustee, Eugene Farrell, shares his insights on why feeling connected matters so much to our mental health and wellbeing.
If we are to flourish, we need to feel connected to others and gain the benefits of that…
There are two themes in this year’s mental health awareness week, depending upon which mental health charity you look at, one focusses on community and the other “the power of community”.
We as humans are very social beings, this evolved to serve us in terms or cooperation in hunting and gathering, and shared nurturing. It also provided group problem solving connection, purpose and psychological safety as well.
Here now we are long way from needing to hunt for food, but our need for connection to others has not diminished. Having and maintaining connection to others is a well-documented contributor to positive mental health. If we are to flourish, we need to feel connected to others and gain the benefits of that. Of course, this doesn’t mean that we must always be in the company of others, we can still operate alone and for many this is preferred always or on occasion.
Our society and work have changed, and over the last twenty years we have seen an erosion of connection, with families fragmenting through work and social movement, and the reduction of extended family. In workplaces too there has been a shift with more home working and transactional work relationships. There has been a rise in loneliness across work and society and now more than ever we need to harness the power of connection.
In workplaces too there has been a shift with more home working and transactional work relationships.
For workplaces there needs to be time for connection, to relate to others and build more than transactional connection. For me, I have always tried to put effort into talking and connecting with work colleagues. A brief chat before meetings to get to know people and get some insight into each other’s life.
Talking about family, activities, sport, television or even the weather provided another level of connection. I’ve always encouraged workplaces to schedule “catch up” time, a coffee and chat. In Sweden this called “fika” and is an important part of building social relationships and making time for shared moments. Swedish car manufacturer has created “fika lounges” for its customers too. We can all find time to take a break and chat.
“I’ve always encouraged workplaces to schedule “catch up” time, a coffee and chat. In Sweden this called “fika” and is an important part of building social relationships and making time for shared moments”.
I know from my work in metal health that not everyone is outgoing, or confident to seek work connections that are more than superficial. We can all help with this by inviting others into our groups, by looking out for colleagues who are perhaps more at the edge of conversations. We can all play a part in increasing work connection and building communities at work. Many organisations these days have put effort into building that shared community connection through empowering and encouraging the motivation that champions and celebrates values, goals and experiences. For example, gender, sexuality, learning or health matters. All provide that belongingness of “people like me”.
I have both seen and experienced the power of volunteerism, which we know has a very powerful effect upon our psyche. Giving to others is a positive feeling and can offer connection to people way outside our own social circles. Social connection ideally is in person, but my experience these days is that social media and messaging platforms like WhatsApp, can provide a solid community and connection.
My wider family has a chat group that post every day and allows the wider family beyond the UK to connect and participate in each other’s lives. I myself have several communities that I connect with virtually where we chat. For me these were founded upon common group activities like cycling. We’ve grown closer through our passion for the sports, I have one group where we share quite extreme adventures and another is a local cycling club, where the Sunday group ride is planned. Sport can provide great connection because there is already a common theme of interest. But I can see how this can easily be applied to other activities and interests.
We might have to work on connection sometimes, but the rewards are always much greater than the effort required.
For me, the theme of movement has always been important. I’ve never found sitting still focused on a screen to be a fully rewarding experience when it lasts all day, even worse all week. Inactivity in our daily life is becoming a huge threat to health and wellbeing. I probably take moving to an extreme by most people’s standards.
Of course, I get up from my desk, but more so I like to get to the gym and be active a couple of times a week, take a class, have a swim and move some weights. I find running to be a peaceful and sometimes relaxing activity. But for me it’s 5k down the canal or joining a Park Run. Riding my bike has become increasingly more important. I find the escape to leafy lanes a real tonic, I can immerse myself in the world, listen to nature, feel the breeze and just ride. Of course, it’s not always a solo experience, I like to ride with friends to chat and just have that feeling of being together, I get connection and movement. In more extreme activities I get a long way from cities, riding in the hills along remote bridleways, riding across Dales or up mountains. Sometimes I am alone and other times with a group, and always its tough but rewarding.
“Riding my bike has become increasingly more important. I find the escape to leafy lanes a real tonic, I can immerse myself in the world, listen to nature, feel the breeze and just ride”.
Opposite to this, I find getting up from my desk and moving allows me more thinking space, I can be more mindful and present using mindfulness skills. This allows my brain to take a break from the incessant flow and demands of work.
Of course, movement doesn’t have to be an extreme sport, anything we can gain enjoyment from where we are moving, has positive health and wellbeing benefits. Schedule movement into your day, this means getting up from your desk and going somewhere. It may be just a stroll or getting a coffee. Commit to an activity and meet that commitment, we almost have to feel that not achieving the commitment feels like were letting ourselves down. Investing time and effort into ourselves is not a selfish act. When we feel better, we give more, we achieve more and we live our lives more.
